Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3385, a bill requiring the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the NTIA, to assess the value, cost, and feasibility of a trans-Atlantic submarine fiber optic cable connecting the United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Ghana, and Nigeria, and to submit a report to Congress with its findings.

The bill also directs the NTIA to report to Congress on the current state of telecommunications connecting the U.S. Virgin Islands and the United States, including an assessment of the lifespan and security of the telecommunications infrastructure linking the two.

This assessment and report will provide the Energy and Commerce Committee with vital information on the strength and resiliency of communications infrastructure in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It will help us determine whether the American interests can be served by connecting the United States and the African Continent with undersea cable infrastructure by way of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

H.R. 3385 is a critical step to enhance American communications security and competitiveness around the world. In recent years, the United States and many allies have recognized the threat posed by untrusted Chinese telecommunications equipment to our own national security.

Thanks to the work of the Energy and Commerce Committee and our colleagues, we have taken steps to remove suspect equipment from the American communications networks to protect against attacks or sabotage by our adversaries, but this work is not finished because network security does not end at the water's edge.

For decades, China and other adversaries have spent considerable time and money to deploy suspect telecommunications equipment and infrastructure across the African Continent. The assessment required in this bill is an important step to understanding the cost of securing the connection between the United States and our African allies, and how best to ensure a critical global communications channel is protected from the prying eyes of our adversaries.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for her leadership of this bill and the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Fulcher) for his partnership in this effort.

This legislation is critical to enhancing our Nation's national security and the security of communications between the United States and our African partners. I look forward to reviewing the results of NTIA's assessment when it becomes available.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett), and I thank her for her leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. I just want to emphasize that H.R. 3385 is a matter of national security. I thank Representative Plaskett for painting such a clear picture of that risk. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3277, the Energy Emergency Leadership Act. This is a bipartisan bill that passed the House in the 117th Congress and is necessary to protect our energy grid from cyberattacks. Our energy infrastructure and grid have seen a number of attacks over the past few years from state actors and other malicious actors. We must defend our grid from cyberattacks.

H.R. 3277 establishes a new Assistant Secretary position at the Department of Energy responsible for cybersecurity and emergency response issues. H.R. 3277 would give the new Assistant Secretary jurisdiction over all energy emergency and security functions related to energy supply, infrastructure, and cybersecurity. This includes responsibilities related to coordination, response, and restoration.

Given today's national security concerns, it is crucial that all of these responsibilities rest with an Assistant Secretary at the Department of Energy, the agency with sector expertise.

The bill would also vest the Assistant Secretary with the authority to provide DOE technical assistance and support to State, local, or Tribal governments upon request, and it would require the Assistant Secretary and DOE to coordinate with other relevant Federal agencies in carrying out the bill's provisions.

DOE already does great work to protect our energy infrastructure. The Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response has been at the forefront of protecting our grid and coordinating responses to attacks. By codifying an Assistant Secretary for cybersecurity and emergency response issues, this legislation would go a long way in helping to protect the Nation's electric infrastructure from hackers and other bad actors that attempt to disrupt our energy grid and harm our economy, our daily lives, and our overall national security.

I commend Representatives Blunt Rochester and Walberg for their bipartisan efforts to protect our energy infrastructure. I hope we can continue to work together on cybersecurity matters moving forward to defend our country from the ongoing threat of cyberattacks.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, energy security should be handled by the Department of Energy. This is important for our national security.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bipartisan bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Wasserman Schultz for her incredible leadership at this very hard time.

Mr. Speaker, on October 7, we witnessed the most horrific, gruesome, terrifying attack on Israel in its history.

Thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and specifically targeted innocent civilians, including women and children. Twelve hundred Israelis were murdered, and women were specifically and systematically brutalized.

Now, 115 days later, 132 hostages are still being held by Hamas. Officials believe 18 have died. The others remain in horrific conditions and have not received required medical checks from the International Red Cross.

I have met with the families of several hostages, and they need our voices and our advocacy to help bring their loved ones home.

Here are two: Naama Levy is 19 years old and is active in a peace movement bringing young Israeli and Palestinian people together seeking peace. Doron Steinbrecher is 30 years old, a veterinary nurse who was kidnapped from her home.

Just imagine if your daughter, sister, or partner were held hostage by Hamas terrorists for 115 days and the torture of not knowing whether they are alive.

Consider for a moment what it must be like to live a nightmare every day, wondering what horrors they might be enduring. Released hostages have reported sexual violence and rape, drugging, beating, branding, and deplorable conditions. Hamas has not allowed the ICRC to assess the condition of the hostages and has not provided proof of life.

We in Congress, we in this country, need to do everything in our power to keep these hostages and their families in our hearts to tell their stories and to bring them home now.

Mr. Speaker, once again, extreme Republicans are doubling down on their out-of-touch attacks on women as they renew their march toward a national abortion ban.

Today, they brought to the floor bills called the Pregnant Students' Rights Act and the Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act. They are two bills with great names and terrible policies.

The first stigmatizes students who seek abortion care. The second pulls money away from needy families in order to fund crisis pregnancy centers. These are sham centers that masquerade as clinics offering free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, but they aren't. They often don't even have a healthcare provider and are designed specifically to dissuade women from considering abortion.

As a physician who has had these nonjudgmental conversations with my own patients, I am disgusted by this manipulation of women who think they are receiving legitimate medical care but are really just getting propaganda.

Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker. This is the march toward a national abortion ban. Vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about fair physician reimbursement to urge my colleagues to immediately address the physician fee schedule cuts that went into effect on January 1, and in a broader sense, address chronically lagging Medicare physician care reimbursement.

Fundamentally, fair reimbursement respects the work that physicians do, and it keeps those physicians' practices open and available to patients so that seniors and others can get the care they need.

Over the past 22 years, adjusting for inflation, physicians have essentially taken a 26 percent pay cut from Medicare. This is in the context of everything else increasing, with expenses up about 47 percent.

I cannot think of another profession whose compensation has dropped by 26 percent over two decades.

If we continue down this path, we will soon find ourselves with loved ones or ourselves unable to find a physician because physician offices will close.

Because of CMS rules, on January 1, physicians just took a 3.4 percent cut in Medicare reimbursement. The least we can do is reverse that.

Last month, I co-led a letter with my colleagues encouraging a fix to this. Here is a way to do it: I co-led a bill that passed out of the Committee on Energy and Commerce that would level physician reimbursement from Medicare and keep it essentially unchanged this year.

Physicians are nervous, and, fundamentally, we need a longer term solution, and that means we need Medicare reimbursement to keep pace with inflation.

That is how we will keep these practices open. We are already seeing practices in rural communities and small towns closing their doors or being consolidated.

Without adequate reimbursement, we are going to see more of this, offices closing, and that will result in patients, seniors, and others who require or depend on Medicare not being able to access the high- quality care they need.

Mr. Speaker, as a pediatrician, I understand that sometimes competing concerns about making sure that children who are food insecure get enough good-quality food to eat at school, and at the same time making sure those meals do not contribute to our epidemic of childhood obesity and its accompanying diseases.

It was trying to balance those priorities that led to 2012 guidelines that prohibited schools from offering 2 percent and whole milk.

Interestingly, data compiled and analyzed from multiple studies since then does not show a correlation between whole milk and increased obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease when compared with other milks. In fact, some studies show the opposite.

In addition, milk is packed with nutrients like calcium and vitamin D. As a consequence of the drop in milk consumption since these restrictions, many children lack sufficient vitamin D and calcium intake.

Vitamin D deficiency is known to adversely affect bone growth and bone density. It may also play a role in increasing the risk for autoimmune diseases. Many of my patients had very low vitamin D levels.

While some children will choose water instead of the lowest fat milks, many others will choose juice or other sugary drinks which carry zero nutritional value and pose known health risks.

I am proud to have introduced the Whole Milk For Healthy Kids Act, and I encourage my colleagues to vote with me in passing this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the public service and accomplishments of Mayor Frank Kuntz, who for the past 12 years has served as the Mayor of Wenatchee, Washington.

Upon entering office, Mayor Kuntz inherited an incredibly difficult situation, as the city faced dire financial challenges. Thankfully, Mayor Kuntz, an accountant by trade, put his professional expertise to good use and worked with Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to restore Wenatchee's financial standing. Moreover, Mayor Kuntz's effective, thoughtful leadership has allowed the city to expand and invest in several development projects that have helped the local infrastructure and economy.

It has been a true pleasure to work with Mayor Kuntz over the past 5 years. His North Star has always been how best to serve the people of Wenatchee. We have shared this goal and worked together in a bipartisan manner to finally make the Apple Capital Loop a reality. Mayor Kuntz and I have also worked together to address crime and the fentanyl epidemic, prevent catastrophic wildfires, and support agriculture, rural economies, and local healthcare. I will miss serving alongside Mayor Frank Kuntz but will continue to cherish our friendship. I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to speak about the epidemic of gun violence that continues to plague our country. In fact, gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children.

As a pediatrician, I understand that we have to look at this as a public health crisis and work on multiple levels to keep our children and communities safe from gun violence.

I am focused on pragmatic solutions and proud that both parties came together last Congress to take some commonsense steps to keep guns away from people who are likely to pose a danger and to address the mental health crisis in this country that has led to higher rates of firearm suicide.

There is more to do, and I invite my Republican colleagues to join us to enhance background checks and close loopholes that allow some people to buy guns without a background check, to increase funding for research so that we can make evidence-based decisions in our legislation, and to incentivize safe storage because children should not have access to their parents' weapons.

There are areas where we worked together last Congress, and we can do more.

Not a single Republican Member of Congress lost their race last year because they voted for commonsense safe gun ownership laws. We can do more to protect children and communities, and we should do it together.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I first thank Chair Rogers, Ranking Member Pallone, Representative Bilirakis, and, of course, Representative Pence, who sponsored this bill together with me, for their leadership and hard work on this bipartisan bill. I am a proud sponsor.

The Animal Drug User Fee Agreement is important for the safety of both animal and human health. This bill will accelerate the development of new medications for animals with a predictable and streamlined review process.

It will hold the FDA accountable for performance goals that will improve wait times for inspections and provide regulatory certainty for innovators and pet and animal owners alike.

It will ensure that our Nation's food supply is safe by making sure the medicines that are administered to food-producing animals are safe.

I want to underscore that this bill is a win for everyone, but it is especially good for farmers.

In my district, farmers, ranchers, and dairymen rely on these FDA- approved medications to keep their livestock healthy. For them, keeping animals healthy is not just about their affection and responsibility for these animals. It is critical for food production, food safety, and their very economic survival.

Having timely access to affordable, effective medications is a key part of our domestic food chain, and that is really the heart of our rural economies.

I am happy to go to bat for our rural areas and our agricultural communities with this legislation. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this important bill, Mr. Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

I thank Mr. Bilirakis and Members on the other side of the aisle for working together on this bipartisan bill. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill to make sure we can speed novel medications to animals in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of H.R. 813, the Global Investment in American Jobs Act. As this legislation's name would suggest, we should work to encourage foreign direct investment that supports high-quality jobs here in the United States. Foreign direct support and investment from

nonadversarial nations can be used to grow critical sectors important for our economic success and national security, including by creating new jobs in our Nation's manufacturing sector.

Once the envy of the world, our manufacturing base has faced steady headwinds for the past several decades. Our Nation's share of global manufacturing activity declined from 28 percent in 2002 to just over 17 percent in 2020. Investment in America's small and medium manufacturers, the bedrock of our industrial might, has also declined over the past 20 years by more than $200 billion. In that same two- decade period, our domestic manufacturing base has shed more than 4 million jobs.

It is time to reverse these trends by revitalizing our Nation's manufacturing industry and bringing jobs back home. The work we did last Congress passing the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act is already helping to turn the tide. The United States added nearly 700,000 manufacturing jobs during President Biden's first 20 months in office. Total construction spending on manufacturing in the United States has skyrocketed to nearly $200 billion per month, more than doubling prepandemic levels.

Foreign direct investment can be another part of the solution to revitalize American manufacturing and job creation. Over a third of all foreign direct investments are in domestic manufacturing, exceeding a total of $120 billion a year. This bill would ensure we keep that flow of investments strong and that such investments support quality, good- paying jobs right here at home.

I commend Representatives Pence and Eshoo for their leadership on this issue, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

I would summarize by saying that this is an excellent bill. There are so many ways to build up our manufacturing sector and to invest in our workforce. Many of those we have already done through the infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act. This is another way to shore up jobs and manufacturing here at home by encouraging foreign investments from friendly nations.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to my chief of staff, Erin O'Quinn.

Erin and I met just a week after I was elected to Congress. This was in November 2018. It was an overwhelming time. There was a lot to organize, and job number one was to find a chief of staff.

Dr. Ami Bera suggested that I meet his deputy chief, Erin. We sat down to coffee and hit it off. I never looked back. I knew right away I could trust Erin to guide me through this whole new world of Washington, D.C., which was quite a contrast from the life of a community pediatrician.

I still remember that first meeting when she asked me what I wanted The Seattle Times editorial board to say about me in 2020. It was a way to figure out my values and goals. Wouldn't you know it? Two years later, the comments made by The Seattle Times endorsement board were remarkably similar to what we set out to achieve.

Erin understands the value of a strong team, remarkable constituent services, outreach, and townhalls. She made sure I was everywhere in the district and that we hired the best team members with hearts of gold and a dedication to service.

With a background in social work, she kept our team in sync and collaborative, and several of our staff are still here today.

I couldn't have done it without Erin. We could not have done it without Erin. I thank Erin and wish her all the best in the next chapter in her life. We will miss her.

Mr. Chairman, just last year, we made the largest investment in clean energy technology and climate science ever. The intention is to spur research and innovation in cutting-edge technologies and then accelerate development and construction of a modernized electric grid, solar and wind farms, modular nuclear reactors, and improved hydropower. However, none of that funding will actually affect climate change if we can't streamline the permitting process.

Frankly, it is pretty exciting to me to think about permitting reform as an area where Democrats and Republicans can work together, but let's be clear that speeding up the permitting process does not mean throwing all environmental protections out the window. That is essentially what today's bill, H.R. 1, their top priority, does today.

It doesn't streamline permitting. It undermines environmental protections and is a huge handout to fossil fuel companies, in some cases allowing them to avoid environmental regulations altogether. It pushes our energy system in the wrong direction.

There is urgency to shift to energy sources that don't emit greenhouse gases. Some of the glaciers on Mount Rainier in my district have already disappeared. That is why we do need to improve the permitting process.

However, the bill we are addressing today decimates that process, putting natural resources at risk and fast-tracking more drilling for oil and gas and mining for minerals on our public lands.

By the way, there are already 9,000 permits out there for oil and gas extraction that aren't even being used, and oil and gas companies are making record-shattering profits right now, quarter over quarter. They don't need another gift from Congress.

It is time to prioritize clean energy projects, and it is those permits that require the most expediency.

This bill isn't permitting reform, and it won't cut costs for American families. When they are ready, I look forward to working with my colleagues on real, serious, pragmatic permitting reform that will allow for the quickest possible transition to cleaner sources. We owe it to generations we will never know.

Madam Speaker, I rise to commemorate the 9th anniversary of the Oso landslide. On that tragic day, 43 people lost their lives when an entire hillside collapsed, smothering the town and burying it in mud.

Washington State was forever changed.

Among the victims were a nurse, veterans, even elementary school students. There were parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and children--all beloved members of their community. We remember them today.

On this anniversary, I would extend my condolences to the friends and family members of those victims. While we cannot change the past, we can honor those who passed away by working toward a safer future.

As a Representative of this resilient community, I have worked to increase funding for emergency communications and services and supported the National Landslide Preparedness Act, all of which help ensure that we are ready if such a disaster strikes again.

People of Oso, my heart is with you today.

Madam Speaker, due to illness, I was unable to be present today. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 143.

Mr. Speaker, due to illness, I was unable to be present today. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 140, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 141, and ``nay'' on rollcall No. 142.